Asset owners representing 3.7 trillion dollars in capital sent a clear message to their asset managers at the end of January: stay committed to net zero. Demand for climate strategies among institutional investors in Europe remains firmly intact.
In February, the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative (NZAM) was formally relaunched. Jean-Jacques Barbéris, head of institutional clients, corporate and ESG at Amundi and a member of the initiative’s advisory board, tells Investment Officer that the push came not from asset managers themselves, but from their clients.
More than 40 asset owners, primarily from the United Kingdom, Scandinavia and France, wrote in December that they were “deeply concerned” about the growing and systemic risks climate change poses to the global economy, markets and their portfolios.
“In line with our fiduciary duties to clients and beneficiaries to mitigate financial risk and maximise long-term asset value, we call on our investment partners to ensure they are equipped and committed to managing these risks responsibly and transparently on our behalf,” the letter stated. “We reaffirm our support for the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative.”
Client demand
For Barbéris, the letter underscores a fundamental point. “It shows that the continuation of the Net Zero Asset Management Initiative has roots into what the asset owners want,” he said, “and the continuation of their efforts supporting the transition.”
The initiative had stalled in January 2025 after Blackrock withdrew, following an earlier exit by Vanguard. The world’s largest asset manager said at the time that participation risked creating confusion and exposing the firm to legal scrutiny.
“If you’re an investor and you’re investing into an insurance company and you’re not looking at what is the associated exposure to climate risks and the potential impact on the valuation of the company, you’re just not doing your job as an investor and you’re going to lose money. Period.”
Since its relaunch, NZAM again counts more than 250 asset managers as signatories, including most major European players and a number of Asian firms. Some US managers continue to participate via their European subsidiaries, a structure that reflects the widening divergence between the two markets.
From ideals to numbers
Barbéris was part of the team around French president François Hollande during the 2015 Paris Agreement. A decade on, he sees a clear shift: climate is no longer an abstract objective, but a material economic factor.
“At the moment of the Paris Agreement, the financial community was engaging into the question for aspirational reasons,” he said. “Now we are just talking about facts and figures.”
The change is driven by better data, more robust models and the integration of the energy transition into Europe’s strategic autonomy agenda.
“If you’re an investor and you’re investing into an insurance company and you’re not looking at what is the associated exposure to climate risks and the potential impact on the valuation of the company, you’re just not doing your job as an investor and you’re going to lose money. Period.”
At the same time, the investment case has shifted. Renewable energy, unlike in 2015, has become commercially viable. Barbéris points to Texas as the second-largest investor in renewables globally after China, driven by returns rather than policy.
Transatlantic divide
The much-discussed ESG backlash is, in Barbéris’ view, largely confined to the United States. In Europe and Asia, momentum has held. At Amundi, he said, nothing has changed: the firm has fully executed its 2025 commitments and will report on them at its annual general meeting.
Still, the US market cannot be ignored, accounting for roughly half of global asset management. Barbéris sees the divergence as structural rather than cyclical.
In Europe, the energy transition has become embedded in industrial policy and geopolitics. China’s rise as a dominant force across the full electricity value chain has accelerated that shift.
‘Forward-looking, transparent investors’
With its relaunch, NZAM is moving away from the perception of being a voluntary pledge platform. The focus is shifting towards implementation: how climate targets are translated into portfolio decisions. That includes greater emphasis on methodologies, data quality and the practical feasibility of transition pathways, as well as the integration of climate considerations into mandates and fiduciary duties.
“Asset managers participating in NZAM send a strong signal to clients, regulators, and other key stakeholders that they are forward-looking, transparent investors, committed to managing climate-related financial risk and opportunity,” said Rebecca Mikula-Wright, chair of NZAM’s steering committee, at the relaunch.
For Barbéris, the next phase will hinge on closer cooperation between asset owners and asset managers, particularly as clients define their targets for the 2025 to 2030 period.
“They work extremely closely, hands-in-hands,” he said, referring to how both sides should engage going forward.
NZAM also aims to improve the comparability of reporting and provide greater clarity on what is operationally achievable in net-zero strategies.
At the same time, attention is gradually expanding from mitigation to adaptation. More clients are asking what climate adaptation means in investment terms and what role private capital can play. That discussion remains at an early stage, but is gaining momentum, Barbéris said.
Amundi, with approximately 2.38 trillion euros in assets under management, is Europe’s largest asset manager.